Iceland speaks – 18 September 1995

Had an inordinate number of emails pointing out that a goat is not worth 1000 words. Oh well, such is the life of a columnist. Thank you to those readers who became vociferous – its nice to know that there is someone out there! Reprinted below an email from Iceland …

From : thorvaldur palsson
To: [email protected]
Subject: one pic. worth 1000 words!!!!!!!!
If the goats are worth 1000 words, then I´m very impressed because here in
Iceland they are only worth a word (and that is a bad one)

Still out of London I’m afraid, so no London news. Had an interesting weekend, all the same. A friend of wifey threw a “drink all the old wine” party where we were asked to do just that. Needless to say I threw myself into the task with abandon (and similarly into the indoor pool later in the evening).

The party took place in the Tucino region of Switzerland, which is very close to the Italian border in the south. The villa was up in the hills about 30km from Lugano – an interesting (and somewhat wealthy) city perched on the edge of a large lake. Italian style architecture gives the city a riviera feeling, although it is still quite far inland.

On Sunday we left the villa for the drive back north to Liechtenstein, our drive taking us through Italy (where we had spaghetti for lunch and watched Italian driving at its finest lead to the temporary discomfort of a cyclist), and north through to St Moritz.

St Moritz is better known for its ski fields, but is a beautiful place in the summer. The cable car to Corvatsch (3300m) was running, so of course we had to go to the top for a pint of Calanda Brau. It’s strange to see the ski pubs devoid of the clamour of thirsty skiers, while outside the snow is still reasonably thick on the ground. Resisted the temptation to indulge in some Williams Schnapps, and headed back down the 2km high cable route to the village.

From St Moritz the route took us back over the Flueul Pass through Davos and Klosters (of royal family skiing fame) back down to Maienfeld. There are some rather nice wines produced in Maienfeld – if you are in the area then you should visit the local pubs and sample some of them. Don’t be disconcerted by the screw tops – corks are in the minority around here!